VMware has posted a new beta release of Virtual SAN (VSAN) that lets enterprises add more storage capacity and management features.

Server virtualization is still VMware’s bread and butter, but the company has this year expanded its aspirations to include the whole data center, including networks, storage as well as servers.

The purported advantages are in many ways the same as in the server sector, including making it easier for administrators to add and remove capacity, be that storage or networking, and also use it more efficiently. The first version of the NSX network virtualization platform was made generally available last month, and VMware is still working on the storage part.

On Tuesday, the company published what it called a VSAN beta refresh, which improves performance and adds some new features.

In the first beta, a disk group could contain a single SSD and up to six HDDs. However, because many servers came with eight slots, VMware decided to change this limit. With the beta refresh, a disk group can now contain a single SSD and up to seven HDDs so that all slots on a server can be taken advantage of, VMware said in a blog post.

VMware has also added more commands to the Ruby Virtual Console, which is included in the vCenter 5.5 and allows for in-depth analysis of the performance of a VSAN cluster. Recently, VMware also published cmdlets, which can be used to automate management tasks using VMware’s command line tool PowerCLI.

The beta is public and free for anyone to download from VMware’s website. The company didn’t elaborate on when it expects Virtual SAN to become generally available.

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